Economy slipping into jobless de-growth: Ficci

Economy slipping into jobless de-growth: Ficci

The government has been accused of ushering the economy into a period of jobless growth. A business chamber survey has painted a gloomier picture - one of "jobless de-growth".

"Net responses with regard to prospect of employment opportunities have turned negative - the first time since the 2008-09 crisis. Thus, the current economic slowdown coupled with a negative growth in employment prospects may force the economy into jobless de-growth," said a Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) statement on the survey.

Economy slipping into jobless de-growth: Ficci

In 2010-11, the index was in the range of 60 to 73 points. In 2011-12, it generally hovered over 51 points but rose significantly to over 60 points, may be due to expectations from the Budget, Ficci economic affairs and research division director Soumya Kanti Ghosh said.

The survey was conducted between July and August 2012, and hence was subsequent to the first quarter of this fiscal, for which GDP numbers were released a couple of days ago.

Click NEXT to read more...

Image: An employee works inside a steel factory on the outskirts of Jammu.Photographs: Mukesh Gupta/Reuters.

Economy slipping into jobless de-growth: Ficci

The survey showed that the respondents, 150 from various segments of Indian industry, were not upbeat about performance and lacked optimism about future performance at economy, industry and firm levels.

The findings showed that weak demand continues to be a concern for members of corporate India.

Nearly 73 per cent of companies reported weak demand to be a constraining factor.

Economy slipping into jobless de-growth: Ficci

As many as 42 per cent of the respondents said investments would remain same in the next six months as against 48 per cent in the last quarter survey.

As much as 25 per cent of the respondents said investments would go down in the next six months.

Fixed investment expanded by just 0.65 per cent in the first quarter of this fiscal against 3.6 per cent in the previous quarter and a high of 14.88 per cent in April-June 2011-12, according to official data.